50 
LOEW'S FIRST VOLUME OF THE “MONOGRAPHS 
Haliday's concept of the Empidae which includes the Hybotidae 
and Tachydromidae. 
In the preface to the second edition of his earliest work “ On the 
Diptera of the Environs of Posen ” (1840), which I have repro¬ 
duced in the Berl. Ent. Zeit 1896, p. 282-284, Loew, after point¬ 
ing out the deficiencies of dipterologv of that time, foreshadows a 
programme of his future work. He says : “ I should have been 
glad to add remarks on the anatomy, biology, and life-habits to the 
enumeration of the species ; but this would have made the defects 
of the adopted System of Diptera so glaring that one would have 
felt tempted to propose a new arrangement, an undertaking which 
is not within my intentions at present, and which would have re¬ 
quired many extensive preparatory researches,” etc. “ However, I 
shall mention here, as a preliminary result of a considerable num¬ 
ber of anatomical researches, that the great importance which 
Meigen attached to the structure of the antennae and of the wings 
seems to have been the principal reason why the System introduced 
by him appears naturally incoherent, as soon as we take the inner 
organization (‘ innere Organization’) into account. Without 
denying the true value of these characters, and without refusing 
them a practical value, 1 it would seem that a closer study of the 
manifold and easily accessible peculiarities in the structure of the 
thorax and of the abdomen might have brought about an arrange¬ 
ment in many respects more natural,'’ etc. In spite of such 
anticipations and promises of a better system, Loew, after an 
interval of twenty years , produced an arrangement which, far 
from being an improvement, was a deterioration of the existing 
one! Loew’s talent lay in the direction of the particular, the 
minute , and not in that of generalization. He felt it quite well 
himself when he wrote me (November 10, 1862): “ Minutiae are 
my specialty, particularly when they fall within the domain of the 
Acalyptrata (‘ Die Minutien sind so recht mein Fach, besonders 
wenn sie in das Reich der Acalypteren fallen ’).” Loew’s best work 
is certainly his numerous papers relating to this group. 
1 “ Ohne diesen Merkmalen ihren wahren Werth zu nehmen, und ohne ihren prak- 
tischen Werth ableugnen zu wollen,” etc. By practical value Loew meant, I suppose, 
the value of the characters for determining specimens. 
